Future Sights
by reminiscent-afterthought
Summary: [past-fic] Mana is a flare of light that Isis can see anywhere: present or future.


**A/N:** Yay, it worked…after a failed attempt. Anyway, my somewhat late entry for Season 12 of the YGO Contest, round six, with the pairing Isis/Mana (Adviceshipping). Though I've got more than a smudge of Mahado here...

* * *

**Future Sights**

Isis senses the lively spirit energy before she hears its owner, and hears the slippers slapping on tile floors before she sees the girl. And she knows from those tell-tale signs it is Mahado's student who seeks her: wild brown hair bouncing as happily as the girl herself, her magic wearing as cheeky a grin as the one on her face when she does come in to view.

Isis half smiles. She does not necessarily approve of Mana's distractions – from her studies, or from Isis' own meditations with the Necklace she wore – but sometimes, they were welcome. And when she saw flames and death and darkness, they were more than welcome.

'What brings you here?' Isis asks mildly, that future dream tucked away for later review. The Pharaoh would need to know soon, and the Priest and the other Millennium holders…but not the younger ones like Mana – not the ones perhaps fortunate enough to escape the battles of their worlds.

'Master calls for you,' Mana says cheerfully. 'He says he has something of importance to ask. In _private._'

Isis frowns a little. Cheerful Mana appears, and a little mischievous perhaps, but the words she brought seemed to imply something else. _This important thing…_ She recalls the dream she'd had: of a great wizard frozen in a slab of stone. _Can it be..?_

'You are contraire today,' Isis offers, rearranging her veil so it covered her hair and neck instead of sagging on her shoulders, as she let it do when she was inside and alone. 'Has something fortunate happened today?'

Mana hums happily, skipping ahead to lead the way. Her footholds echo loudly, drowning out the Priestess' following her. Her shadow too stretches out tall and bright; Isis, behind her and in the shadows, making her look even brighter. 'Mahado is pleased with my progress,' she says. 'He says that, in a few years and some more discipline, I can unlock my _Ka_ and become a real Magician…and maybe even a Priest.'

It is a truth the both of them know: Isis, and Mana…and Mahado and the Pharaoh as well. But they also know Mana's love for fun and a happy world make her slow to unlock that potential, and it is something that frustrates Mahado greatly: Mahado who wishes his student to blossom soon…

_…so he can vanish into stone fighting for the Pharaoh and leave something behind,_ Isis thinks. And he will get his wish, in a way. Mana _will_ become strong, and faster than she wishes at this point. She will unlock a Ka similar in power and appearance to his own. She will fill the empty seat he leaves behind on the Court – a Court not under the Pharaoh she grew up with and loves, but a new one.

Isis has seen a lot of changes to their current world.

**.**

'You know what I wish to speak about,' Mahado says to her, after he has sent Mana away. The girl pouted and hung about for a bit, but he shooed her off. It wouldn't do, after all, for her to hear them now.

Isis inclines her head: a small affirmation. When Mahado says nothing thereafter, she adds: 'I saw –'

He holds out a hand, stopping her. 'I do not wish to know,' he says. 'And if I could, I would take that knowledge away from you as well.'

She closes her mouth and nods again.

'I will simply fight with all my strength for my Pharaoh.' And for him, who put the Pharaoh and his world ahead of his own life, it was that simple. Especially when he didn't know his fate awaited him, when he walked to his death armed still with a strong spear of home.

'Come back safe,' she says, and it is a useless gesture to herself but a happy, reinforcing one for him. He smiles and accepts it; accepts it because it tells him nothing except her own hope – and she is allowed to hope, allowed to think she may have seen something wrong, that it is just his _Ka_ trapped in that stone, that it can be freed later on…

But she knows she has seen right when the news comes to her, later in the night. And it is not Mana this time, Mana who always brings her news or messages from Mahado. It is someone else: one of the Pharaoh's guards, whose name she can't recall. And she cries, because she has already seen the tears of others and she doesn't need to see them again - but still, in her own tears she sees Mana, kneeling and sobbing on the cold floor of the training hall where she practised her magic with Mahado.

**.**

'Teach me,' Mana demands. She is not smiling now; her eyes are instead filled with a determined fire and her spirit energy sparking with the same flare.

'I know very little of magic,' Isis says, gaze shifting away from the window and towards the students, on her knees before her. 'Stand, please.'

Mana stands, but the set expression in her face does not change. 'I know magic,' she explains. 'I have Master Mahado's lessons, and books. I need to learn to control my _Ka_. I need to learn discipline.'

_Why from myself?_ Isis wonders briefly; Mana has surprised her, distracted her from the shadows she'd been gazing at once again. But she thinks she understands why. The Pharaoh and Mahado were Mana's closest friends, both precious people to her. And Mahado had entrusted her with the Pharaoh protection – something she could not, without her Ka, do.

'I am not sure what I can do,' Isis says, after some thought. 'But I will try.'

And she does try: meditation, slow and tedious brewing and other things – things Mana struggles through with her lively spirit but masters with determination and time. Mahado's sacrifice has awakened a drive in her that had not existed before: taken her away from the veil she could once hide behind, despite her light.

But it has also changed her, and Isis watches Mana change into the woman in her dreams.

**.**

Mana's _Ka_ has indeed awakened strong, and Isis watches it once again as Mana undergoes the ritual of the Priests. It is one she remembers undergoing herself, some time ago – but she has been a Priestess for a long time: one of the few from Atem's original court that remain.

Seto is Pharaoh now, and Mana is taking her place as Mahado's successor. Her spirit energy still burns bright, as does the fire in her eyes even now the times of peace were returning again. The darker energy from the Millenium Ring engulfs the pair of them, but Isis can still sense the spiritual energy, can still hear the staff clanging against something metallic in the black – the reverse of times ago, when Mana would run up to her door with a message from Mahado, happy for an excuse to skive off a lesson from him and looking to make mischief on the side – even if it was something relatively innocent like trying to arrange a contract between them.

Isis knows the future though, and she knows that she will outlive Mana as well, and a new Magician take their place as priest. She knows she will see them both again, in a new world: both robed and bright and framed by darkness unlike her own self, indistinct. She knows she will see them, fighting enemies side by side, hand in hand, while she watches only from her dreams.

But, for now, the shadows disappear into the Ring and Mana brings her staff down one final time, spells tumbling from her lips as she binds the Millennium Item to her command. It falls from the altar, clattering on the tiles before falling still, and her _Ka_, the girl magician that looks so much like her, vanishes as she picks it up.

Isis sees a glimpse of tears but also of happiness and fulfilment. It was Mahado's item once, and now it is Mana's. And Mana is still Mana, though she doesn't run in the hallways with her spirit surging ahead, or bounce through Isis' doorway with brown hair in a tarry anymore. Her hair is in fact, somehow, tamer now, Isis reflects. She wonders why; perhaps it is the weight of new responsibilities on her back.

It will be even tamer in the future, Isis knows. And then, Mana will not stand by Isis' side, but by Mahado's where she is happiest standing. Because Mana still mourns for Mahado, mourns deeper than any other currently living soul – and Isis has seen the destiny that binds those souls bringing them together once more.

But, for now, Mana is accepting the throng from the Pharaoh and looping it through the Ring, wearing it around her neck. And she is coming to stand beside Isis, who stands behind the Pharaoh's left with her Necklace, the eye to the future, around her neck.


End file.
